


Sportsfest 2020 BR Fills

by doublejoint



Category: Free!, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 08:35:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24966832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Fills <1000 words for Sportsfest 2020, non-explicit.
Relationships: Aomine Daiki/Momoi Satsuki, Araki Masako/Alexandra Garcia, Himuro Tatsuya/Kagami Taiga, Himuro Tatsuya/Nijimura Shuuzou, Imayoshi Shouichi/Susa Yoshinori, Midorima Shintarou/Takao Kazunari
Kudos: 11
Collections: SportsFest 2020





	1. A Still Night, Kagami/Himuro (KnB)

The game goes into four overtimes, and Tatsuya gets home even later than usual, even later than usual for a playoff game. At least by the time the day rolls over into the morning the night has cooled off a bit, and the walk to his apartment building from the garage where he parks his car isn’t unpleasant. It’s only May, but the seasons have finally decided to play catch-up after four straight months of 50-degree weather. In the dark, on the side street, white and pink and green blossoms on the trees stand out in bright contrast, catching the light from a few windows and open lobby doors and the outsides of buildings. The night is as quiet as it ever gets here; only a few other people had left the subway station with Tatsuya, and even on Broadway only a few cars and trucks passed by. 

As the elevator makes its way up, Tatsuya scrolls through his phone. He hadn’t gotten a chance to check out the results of the other games--one out on the west coast, still going on, and one not so far away at all, Taiga’s bulls against the Sixers in Philly.

Taiga had a triple-double, and the reception’s too shitty to load his highlight reel. Tatsuya yawns as the elevator reaches his floor. The adrenaline’s wearing off and it’s really, really fucking late. He’s got practice tomorrow, and then they’ll leave for Miami in the afternoon, but he doesn’t want to go to sleep. 

He’d left the windows open and a cool breeze is coming through; once he takes off his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves it almost feels nice. He should watch Taiga’s highlight reel, but his phone screen is small and he’d much rather talk to Taiga, even if it’s just on the phone.

Two rings, and Taiga picks up. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Tatsuya says. “Triple-double, huh?”

“You got one too,” Taiga points out.

“I got almost two extra quarters,” says Tatsuya. 

Tatsuya can hear Taiga shrug and pass off the fight from the other end of the line. He smiles. 

“I wish I could be there,” Taiga says, his voice quieter. 

“Me too,” says Taiga. “You can be, if you win your series and we win ours.”

(As if either of them needs the extra motivation, as if either of them doesn’t have it already coursing through their veins.)

“I’ll hold you to it,” says Taiga.

They stay on the line a little longer, no sound but the quiet night.


	2. Can (not) Redo, Nagisa & Rei (Free!)

Maybe he shouldn’t have let them do it. No, he definitely shouldn’t have let them do it. Nagisa’s skin itches from the inside like he’s stuck at his desk in middle school getting through a test so he can take on the next one, like he’s falling behind, like there’s nothing he can do to make things comfortable and right. 

Rei is quiet, and Nagisa can’t blame him. Nagisa can’t look at him head-on; it’s too painful, too glaring, the thing that sits between them.

Rei, and all he’s learned in such a short time, for all that they’d really become a team, on the sidelines. Rei, who Nagisa pulled into the picture even though he didn’t want to be in it, or maybe felt like he couldn’t, because after all, in the end--they’d chosen Rin, when it didn’t have to be a choice at all. They’d brought Rei in to replace Rin and then shoved him off to the side when they’d had a chance to get Rin back, like Rei was a knockoff phone charger or the spare set of keys that you have to jiggle in the lock to get the door to open. 

Nagisa should have put his foot down. They’re a team. He can stand up to Makoto and Haru and Rin--he could have, less than an hour ago, but he fucking didn’t. He didn’t say, no, Rei is our teammate; he didn’t say no, this is our team now. (Are Makoto and Haru happy? Nagisa wants them to be, for this to maybe be worth it, but Rei’s maybe the only one who can make that judgement. It was Rei who had said that this is what Rin wanted--but is this what he’d meant? Is this what Rin had meant?)

“I’m sorry,” Nagisa says.

“It’s okay,” says Rei.

(He hadn’t even asked what Nagisa was apologizing for specifically, and maybe Nagisa just meant all of it, or maybe his apology wasn’t sincere enough. Or maybe Rei doesn’t want to talk about it.)

Rei walks a little bit closer to Nagisa. He might not be mad--Nagisa would normally have no problem asking, but the situation’s too precarious, too full of surface tension like the center of a still lake. He can’t redo it. He can’t tell them to pick another time, when including Rin doesn’t mean excluding Rei, because they’ve already done it. He can’t be the one to step out and let Rei have this race, because he’s the one who’s had it already. But he’ll find a way to make it up to Rei, somehow.


	3. Sprinkles, Kagami & Himuro (KnB)

The cupcakes are in the oven and Tatsuya’s wound up the kitchen timer to fifteen minutes. The kitchen is an absolute mess; Tatsuya knows what he’s doing but he’d splattered cupcake batter all over the counter and the floor, and there’s icing mixed in with it somehow. They’ve managed not to spill any sprinkles, probably because Taiga’s the one who had poured them into the batter and snuck a few for himself when they sat off to the side while Tatsuya mixed them in. He pinches another few between his hands and drops them into his mouth; when he opens his fingers they’re stained witht he pastel food-coloring, steaks of green and pink and orange.

Tatsuya drops the mixing bowl in the sink with a sharp clang, and Taiga flinches. Tatsuya looks over to him, and then to Taiga’s hand, still in the air.

“No more sprinkles,” he says. “I know they’re good, Taiga, but we need to save some for the icing.” 

“I know…” Taiga says.

Tatsuya’s gaze softens, like the drops of batter clinging to his wrists. “I bet we have some actual candy somewhere if you want some. I can ask my mom.”

She probably wouldn’t say yes, since they’re already making cupcakes. Too much sugar. 

“I’m sorry,” says Taiga.

“You don’t have to be,” says Tatsuya. “Just make sure we have enough, okay?”

Taiga nods. 

*

They have the kitchen mostly restored to its state of organized chaos (unlike Taiga’s dad’s rarely-used home kitchen, this one is small and stuffed with mismatch appliances and cookware, more like the apartment he’d lived in back in Japan) by the time the timer goes off. Tatsuya sticks a toothpick into one of the cupcakes in the middle (he won’t let Taiga get near the oven, and Taiga wants to say that he’s old enough to handle it if Tatsuya is, but by the time he’s decide to do it Tatsuya’s closed the oven door again).

“Look, the toothpick isn’t clean yet. We’ll wait another few minutes.”

Taiga winds the timer back up for five more minutes and leans against the counter, trying not to tap his foot. 

“Do you think we need to stir the icing more?”

“Maybe,” says Tatsuya. “It can’t hurt.”

The sugar, butter, and milk are all stirred together; it looks smooth and creamy and Taiga can’t wait to cover the cupcakes in it (and eat the rest). Maybe they’ll have a few sprinkles left at the end, and they can eat the rest of the icing with the rest of the sprinkles without worrying about having enough left for the cupcakes.


	4. Home Again, Aomine/Momoi (KnB)

The sun is still up when Satsuki gets home from work, for the first time this year. She digs in the pocket of her coat for a key and then pulls it out to unlock the door to her building, slotting her finger through the key ring to keep it out for when she reaches her apartment. 

“I’m home!” she calls as she enters, pulling off her loafers and then her coat before she even locks the door. It smells like curry; Satsuki breathes in again. Lunch was such a long time ago, and she’s really fucking hungry.

“Welcome home.”

Daiki finally appears, wooden spoon in one hand. Satsuki hangs her suit jacket on the hook on top of her coat before she walks over to him, swinging her his, watching his eyes follow. She hugs him, and he leans down to kiss her neck; he’s warm and smells like cloves. 

“When did you get back?”

“Lunchtime,” he says. “I took a nap after, but I’m still tired.”

As if to illustrate it, he yawns. Satsuki doesn’t have to glance at the calendar on the wall to count the ten days he’s been gone on a road trip, or the six until the next one. Six days she gets with him, sending her off in the mornings and maybe welcoming her home in the evenings, leaving his clothes in a heap on the bedroom floor, coffee stains on the counter that he’s forgotten to clear up, an organized shoe rack and an emptied clean dishwasher, homemade dinner much better than what she can make on her own (even after years of trying to learn). His hand, warm on hers like it is now, the life they share snapping back like fresh elastic, to the routine they only get half the time during the basketball season.

There’s a game tomorrow, and Satsuki might not stop at home before she goes to the arena, depending on traffic. There is work she’d told herself she’d do when she got home, but it’ll have to wait to get crammed in sometime tomorrow, because they have so much to catch up on, even though they were texting the whole way; he’d asked for her selfies and she’d watched his games. 

The curry could be burning on the stove soon, or now. Satsuki squeezes her arms around Daiki’s waist. Breathing him in. He leans down, and she can feel Daiki’s knuckles through her shirt against her back, clutching the spoon still.


	5. Chlorophyll, Alex/Masako (KnB)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex is a plant person (citrus tree).

Masako’s no good with plants. Machines she can handle, changing the oil in a car or taking her motorcycle apart and putting it back together, fixing a sputtering combustion engine, replacing a battery, but she’s never planted a seed. Her scallion ends never grow when she places them in water on the windowsill. 

Alex is not that kind of plant. She’s not dependent on anyone moving her towards the light, rotating her base, placing her somewhere warm, pouring water down her throat. Her leaves unfurl and stretch toward the sun in summer when she sits outside, tangled in her hair and extending from her arm, her shoulders, between her toes. She drinks straight from the tap sometimes when she’s more thirsty, but she goes for it herself, her leaves pressed against the edge of the sink and the counter. (In the autumn, when she’s in Akita, she stays indoors more and more, in the warmth and light, a little too dry but it doesn’t hurt her the way the cold air and darkness makes her wince and draw back, though she tries to hide it.)

The rustle of her leaves in the night, when she lies sleeping next to Masako, is calming, like sleeping with the windows open in the summer, listening to the wind blow through the trees outside. They’re soft to the touch under Masako’s fingers, surprisingly responsive. 

(“Does shedding them hurt?”

Alex shakes her head. “It’s like shedding a hair. It just happens sometimes.”)

She blooms when Masako visits her in LA in the spring, the sun’s warm rays in the lengthening days coming down on the white blossoms curling out against her leaves and her skin. 

“It’s because I’m happy you’re here,” Alex says, no hint of irony.

Masako doesn’t point out scientific explanations and growing seasons; she won’t poke holes in that theory (and she’s no biologist; maybe all of that’s irrelevant here). A flower falls from her hair and Alex snatches it out of the air and hands it to Masako.

“Keep it with you.”

She dries it out and keeps it on her desk at work, and it smells like Alex still, heady and fragrant, like the late spring far away. One day they’ll live together and she’ll no longer need it, and Alex will shed white petals every spring, and Masako will still keep the flower tucked away somewhere safe. It will still be precious.


	6. All Your Being, Teppei (KnB)

This is it. This is your last game, maybe forever, but definitely the last with Seirin. The team for which you laid the foundation yourself with your own hands, carefully, to sit back on your heels and let Hyuuga and Riko and Izuki take the reins, to come back and see what they and all the others had built up, that the first-years had built on top of, so intricately and sturdily and beautifully.

This is not your middle school team. This is not the team where you were the only one who believed; this is the team where everyone else believes and pulls you along when your knee is sore and you’re not feeling too certain of anything yourself. You ask Riko in a roundabout way and, because she’s Riko, she knows what you’re saying and gives you the reassurance you need. You don’t have to ask Izuki, but he’ll invite you over for a meal with his family, and you can sit and eat a home-cooked meal and listen to them sling puns at each other and bicker and be a part of it.

You can go one-on-one with Kagami and know he’s giving it his all, that he won’t concede and he won’t half-ass it. You can ask Furihata for your stat line and he’ll give it to you. You can receive Kuroko’s passes, firmly in your hands, and dunk them straight through the hoop. You can jump, to shoot or block or get a hand in, and know that you won’t land surrounded by opponents with your teammates not even trying to get open or peel them away. 

You can only give them so much; you can only give them all your being. Time runs out; you can lean on your leg until the muscles shred themselves, until you’re lying on the floor again and can’t stand on your own. And they will pick you back up, all over again. You’ll say, let’s have fun, and it will make them smile and agree, and they’ll run out on the court with you, not after you, not just at the same time as you.

You may win; you may lose. You’ve gotten this far, though, kept it going as long as you could. The end is here, but you’ll all face it together. This is a team, not individuals, not you and each of them. No matter the outcome, you’ll give your best, and your best will be damn well good enough.


	7. Meant For, Takao/Midorima (KnB)

“Do you believe in soulmates?”

Shintarou creases the newspaper so that his eyes are looking over the top, the side of his glasses catching the light. “No.”

He flips the newspaper back up and turns the page. Kazunari checks the weather on his phone, sunny today. Shintarou’s lucky item is a glasses case, and Kazunari’s is a bottle of nail polish--he’d taken one from Shintarou’s store of past lucky items, and it sits in his pocket. He’s not sure if he even believes in that, but maybe that’s something that’s self-fulfilling. It works for Shintarou because he believes, but not for Kazunari. Shintarou takes another sip of his coffee. Outside, a car horn honks, and Kazunari checks his phone again. Five minutes and he can still catch the latest possible train that will get him to work on time.

*

Do you think we’re meant to be? Kazunari means to ask.

His mouth is shut; his eyes are focused on the shogi board. Shintarou says that using hawkeye is cheating for this, but Kazunari always says that Shintarou can see the whole board from his vantage point anyway. And he doesn’t use hawkeye, anyway; he just wants Shintarou to think he does. It’s easy to needle him, and maybe someday it’ll throw him off his game enough for Kazunari to last a little longer against him.

The tea is already cold, but that’s because Kazunari waits to make his move. Again, just to needle shintarou, to try and reveal cracks in his plan, but either Kazunari doesn’t know enough about shogi to catch them or Shintarou’s good at hiding it. He’s not hiding his annoyance, the crease in his forehead or the frown on his face.

Maybe they’re not meant to be; though Kazunari can force his way in to press Shintarou’s buttons as if his hands are frozen in a position to reach them all, that’s just a coincidence. Or Shintarou’s too easy and no one else tries him the way Kazunari does. Maybe it’s not fate, just luck and circumstances, but what could be less like fate than Shintarou’s shot falling through the hoop from every angle, from every distance? What could be less like fate than Kazunari resenting him and then meeting him?

*

“Do we need to be fated for this to have meaning for you?” says Shintarou.

His eyes are fixed in the distance, at the curtains fluttering in the breeze from the slightly-open window. His hand of cards is still in his hand, a perfect fan against the white tape on his fingers.

Kazunari pauses. Of course he doesn’t, but of course he’d never think he was saying that--isn’t Shintarou the one who places faith in the higher power who decrees his luck? Wouldn’t he feel better if he thought this had the blessing of that higher power?

“No,” says Kazunari. “But I thought you believed in fate.”

Shintarou pushes his glasses up on his nose. “I believe that there is a limit on what is humanly possible for any individual to control. That there are things over which we can exercise no force, but can only do our best to make things better. Practice, knowledge, luck. But we can’t have foreknowledge, and there’s no one fated outcome of anything.”

“So you’re saying—”

“I love you because I choose to. Not because it’s destiny.”

That’s--actually pretty romantic. Kazunari can’t tease that, though he wants to; it’s not a mood he can or should lighten. He drops one hand to the table and opens it, palm up. Shintarou covers it with his own a few seconds later.


	8. Circle the Drain, Nijimura/Himuro (KnB)

It’s hard to resist the urge to flail and grab onto the nearest thing and prolong the inevitable, instead of just letting yourself sink down to the bottom where you belong. That’s why he pushes people away, so he doesn’t drag them down with him, so he doesn’t get them caught up in his clutches and circling the drain. It’s his own fault. It’s his own burden. To reach for something else is to deny the way he’s fucked up, or to say at the least that it’s a small enough fuckup that he deserves another chance.

He’d deserved another chance, maybe, when his fist had tightened as Taiga jumped higher than should be possible, when he’d challenged Taiga, even perhaps when he was about to yell at him. But instead of stepping back, he’d rushed forward and obliterated everything left of Taiga’s trust in him, everything left of him that was worth anything.

Shuu disagrees, but Shuu doesn’t know what happened, and Tatsuya both wants and doesn’t want to tell him. He’s got a right to know. Maybe it would change his mind, if he knew the specifics.

The worst part of Tatsuya doesn’t want him to change his mind. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to grab on tight to Shuu with both arms and cry on his shoulder and drag him down under the ocean current as the undertow drags them out towards the Eastern Hemisphere. He wants to tell Shuu and have Shuu be okay with it anyway, have his cake and eat it. This is more than he deserves, after all that he’s done, after Taiga and after everything else, the fights he’s picked for no reason and the days spent loathing himself and clenching his fists until his fingernails leave dents in his palms, stealing Shuu away from his family and schoolwork for a night and another night and another after that so they can take joyrides up the mountains or over toward the beach, lie out in the sand and see the stars when they squint through the light pollution. And Tatsuya can stay silent a little longer, let the guilt eat him up from the inside when Shuu’s finger traces over his hand and up his wrist. Push it off, a few feet a way, just a bit more, and give the guilt a fighting chance to get him before he drowns in everything else. Give Shuu a chance to decide for himself to get out of this.


	9. a better way of telling, Imayoshi/Susa (KnB)

Susa finds Imayoshi just about to step out of the dorm without an umbrella. The sky is pissing sheets of rain; the rainy season’s only just begun and it’s going to be here for a while. Either Imayoshi’s acting like an idiot to prove a point, or he really needs a new prescription.

“What are you doing?”

“My umbrella broke,” says Imayoshi. “Remember?”

Susa does not, in fact, remember this. It is also before morning practice, before the caffeine has hit, after a night spent frantically memorizing math formulas. He’ll give it fifty-fifty odds on being true.

“I reckon we’ll both fit under yours, though,” says Imayoshi, just as Susa opens his own umbrella.

It is not particularly large or sturdy. It will not be conducive to Susa hiding and forgetting about this stupid persistent crush he has on Imayoshi, like a scab he can’t stop picking at. He should say no, even though he knows it won’t make any damn difference, and sure enough Imayoshi’s wriggling into his personal space like a cat, shoving him over so that they both just barely fit.

Susa has never wished the dorm was closer to the gym more. 

Imayoshi still has bedhead, and his arm, millimeters from Susa’s, is warm. Susa should push him into a puddle. His arm twitches. He shouldn’t be such a baby about this; it’s just a walk, just a walk with him matching Imayoshi’s slightly shorter strides, with Imayoshi’s hand coming to curl around his on the handle of the umbrella.

“I can hold it,” says Susa.

“I know,” says Imayoshi.

He hitches his bag on his other shoulder; the umbrella wobbles in their hands. Imayoshi doesn’t let go. They keep walking. They’ll reach the gym soon, and then they’ll let go and start practicing. That’s all there is to this, regardless of what Susa wants there to be. (And somehow, Imayoshi always knows exactly what to do like he’s holding a carrot out on a stick for Susa to grab at only to snatch it away. This can only be that again.)

“Susa, you idiot,” Imayoshi says, and kisses him.

Susa nearly drops the umbrella, even with Imayoshi’s hand around his. 

“You could have picked a better way of telling me,” Susa says.

(He’s pretty sure that pretending to have a broken umbrella when it’s way too early in the damn morning and they have a full day of practice and class ahead is not the smartest plan that Imayoshi could have come up with.)

“You could have told me at all,” says Imayoshi.


End file.
